Twice in a week now we’ve seen religious conservatives trotting out the New Testament in defense of tax policies that favor the wealthy. I’m not opposed to using Scripture to bolster a political point, and it’s Jordan Sekulow’s prerogative if he wants to go on record supporting tax cuts for the rich. But this piece of work is a sad deployment of Jesus’ message as a straw man in the tax debate:
The Bible, specifically the New Testament, does not implore mankind to personally fund a social welfare state. When the government takes tax dollars and redistributes wealth, the citizens who provided that money are not voluntarily assisting those in need and thus not participating in a true act of charity.
“Do to others what you would have them do to you,” requires you taking action, not the government. There are a variety of charities, many with religious ties but plenty without, to support. The government acknowledges the importance of these organizations by grants of tax-exempt status.
Of course, Jesus’ calls to action are about personal behavior, personal works. And the government has always acknowledged the crucial role those private works play in easing suffering, building opportunity and pushing for equality. But turning these true statements about the New Testament into a legalistic exemption from concern about the effects of tax policy on equality is a textbook case of ignoratio elenchi (“irrelevant conclusion”). The fact that Jesus urged his followers to perform works of personal charity has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not tax cuts are moral or immoral. The bigger question, the one from which Sekulow’s legalism is calculated to shield him, is whether or not a Christian heeding all of Jesus’ words—which contain nothing if not denunciation of extreme wealth—is likely to consider defending the financial interests of the very, very rich as consistent with Christ’s moral passion.
Progressive Christians do not, to my knowledge, substitute the federal welfare state for “true acts of charity,” or refer to paying taxes or advocating that the extremely wealthy pay most of the taxes as “charity.” They’re just one part of a multi-faceted approach to defending the least of these in the way Jesus demanded.
David Sessions
David Sessions is the founding editor of Patrol. He covers religion for Newsweek and The Daily Beast, and is a graduate student in the Draper Program for Humanities and Social Thought at New York University. He can be reached at hdavidsessions at gmail dot com.
10 Responses to Come On, Jordan Sekulow, You're Better At Interpreting The Bible Than That
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Jordan’s comments somehow strike me as more intellectually honest than yours.
How so?
I flatly disagree with you, Raydioboss. Sekulow’s comments make huge assumptions about the nature of human individuals, the nature of charity, the nature and roll of government, and the nature and roll of taxes. The reason that taxes and welfare are moral questions for Sekulow (in his article, at least), is that it forces some people to give without wanting to give and because it’s not the government’s purpose (though, in my opinion, that assumption is far more a result of some forms of enlightenment philosophical thought than any attempt to read scripture in the context in which it was written). The reason these are moral questions for progressive christians (in general), is that the fatherless and widows won’t really care where their food comes from if they end up with a needed meal. The reason it *should* be a moral reason for politically conservative Christians is that the poor need food, but a welfare state may or may not be the best way to do this. Personally, I think David did a good job of showing at least part of the problem with Sekulow’s perspective, and it is entirely intellectually honest.
David, I think you’re overreacting on this one. I think Jordan has some decent points. I agree with him that forced charity really isn’t charity at all. It may help people, but it has nothing of the spirit of charity, which I think is what he’s getting it. He’s saying that personal, individually motivated charity is superior to forced, impersonal government charity. I wouldn’t say the scriptures Jordan references necessarily affirm or reject his views, but I do think they suggest the principle of the personal over the impersonal, the spirit of charity over the reluctance of forced contribution. I’m not saying I agree with Jordan, but I am saying that I think your criticism is a bit unjust.
Putting all that aside for a moment, it really irks me that people keep going around talking about “tax cuts for the rich” as if cutting taxes for “rich” people were somehow immoral or criminal or insane. That’s utter nonsense. The money “rich” people have BELONGS TO THEM, not to the government of the United States, the middle class or the poor. It belongs only to those who own it. Many people today have a mindset that pits one class (I didn’t think we were supposed to have classes in the US) against another. The poor and middle class say to the rich “give us your money, you greedy scoundrels!” In my opinion, that behavior is wrong, irresponsible, and shows a lack of self-respect. The American Dream is that you have the opportunity to succeed in this country. What you make of that opportunity is completely up to you. People don’t seem to believe in that dream anymore.
Joshua,
I think what you are observing isn’t necessarily claims that rich people or immoral, criminal, or insane, but rather that justice begs those who have more to give more. But, you’re right, in the United States, and in capitalism, there is no requirement for people to willingly give up what is theirs.
But then, if we are approaching this as people of faith, which I’m assuming that we are all doing here, this gets a bit more complicated because although Jesus certainly didn’t outright demonize the rich, he did, on many occasions, challenge them or call them to higher standards in terms of charity. And, I think we can agree, he recognized the inherent difficulty that a rich person experiences in freely giving.
We shouldn’t demonize the rich, but, I think, especially as Christians, it is fair to require more from them.
As for the American dream, if you sense that people don’t seem to believe it anymore, there may be some truth in that. And it may be because so many people have had the opportunity to see first hand that the dream isn’t equally reachable. That is, for some people, due to no choice of theirs, it can only remain just that, a dream.
Joshua,
Your second paragraph betrays some good old American Dream idealism: that everyone has the same opportunity and everyone has earned what they have, so everybody should get to keep what’s theirs and the poor should “respect” the rich because they earned their fortune. That’s unfortunately no longer true, not that it was really every as true as some people would like to believe. Many of the wealthiest people in our society make their billions by leeching off public largess and most recently, aggressively defrauding the poor in order to fuel the subprime mortgage racket. (One hedge fund manager’s personal motto: “Fuck the poor.”) So while there’s nothing wrong with being rich, you don’t seem to realize how many of America’s rich are in fact greedy scoundrels whose very goal is to prevent the market (the so-called level playing field) from operating fairly.
At this moment, the lower classes have a very valid complaint against big money, whether it be the personal fortunes of hedge fund managers and bankers who sold out the country for personal gain, or the special interests who have bought Washington into permanent inaction. The pursuit of obscene profit created the mess that hits the less fortunate hardest. So we’re not demanding that the rich give us “their money,” we’re demanding that they pay the price in proportion to the damage they cause(d), that they bear a primary responsibility for funding the federal government that enables (some/many of them) to obtain such wealth in the first place. This isn’t about class warfare as much it’s about simple justice: quite a few very wealthy people in this country are getting away with virtually no consequences for an economic meltdown they intentionally created, while those below struggle to get by without jobs and sometimes without unemployment benefits.
In general, I don’t think it’s “insane” to let the wealthy keep more of their money if the budget is balanced and things are humming along on a sustainable path. But we’re talking about giving the wealthy a massive tax cut at the same moment we’re facing down a chilling deficit. And then having the gall to suggest the New Testament would support such a thing. That’s what’s insane.
The Scripture clearly shows that the society God planned for His People were to take care of the poor. They were to leave the corners of their fields uncut so that the poor could perform their own labor to reap what was left for them. The more fields you had, the more you would leave for the poor. However, I think percentage-wise, it all would work out fairly even. EVERYONE who owned land had to do this.
In our country, the rich already pay a higher percentage of taxes, and as they continue to reach higher brackets, their taxes increase. I think if we want to do more than this, we should just leave the Bible out of it.
David,
Your reaction is one that would lead the casual reader to believe that Sekulow is misusing the Bible to make a political point. In fact, Sekulow seems to be cautioning Christians about the folly of this tactic. Frankly, those on the right and the left are equal opportunity offenders in this regard (Bible-thumping about this or that issue). Sekulow seems to be saying that the Bible doesn’t call us to support this or that _tax policy_.
Why would paying higher taxes be a more Christlike thing to do? Can we assume that most tax revenue goes to social services?
Or are you saying that taxes should be punitive?
Or are you using the term tax policy when you really want to talk about spending?
On another note, in what way does our tax policy “favor the wealthy”?
The language sometimes used to refer to “the government” over and against the individual or a particular group (“us”, depending on who is speaking) is very telling. This sort of disconnect allows us to separate ourselves from evils perpetrated in our name, and to feel disempowered to make a difference, outside of some juvenile sort of political tantrum. The government is “us” whether we like it or not, and the sooner we admit that the sooner we can get about fixing some of our problems, including issues of taxation.
At least he didn’t use the “whoever has will be given more” verse. I was afraid it was going to be that one when I saw the title.